Railway Blogs

Our new Black 5 in the final round of painting, with final reassembly planned for, hopefully, mid April. The loco’s nameplate, numbers and LMS logo on tender, will all be in place soon. 

Then the loco will be taken around to the park, where the commissioning process will start and after several weeks of works she should be ready for passenger hauling. 

Our Holmside has also been reassembled, for the first time in many years 🎉
The boiler has been hydraulically tested, next will be steam and running testing to ensure her fitness for purpose 👍🏻 

A big thank you 🙏🙏 to all who have worked long and hard 💪🏻 on these locos to bring them to this stage, almost ready to head to the park and pull their weight 🏋🏻 

It’s only four days to go before our first running day of the new season – Saturday 28th April 🎉

Last minute maintenance and preparation work is almost completed and should be all ship shape after this Thursday’s final testing 🛤️💪🏻 

Thank you 🙏 to all the volunteers who have helped with the full range tasks on the winter work list to get the railway ready for another season.

Carriages were washed and cleaned, brakes tested, locomotives given their final servicing and a test run.
Another team has been busy levelling and ballasting the track to get it ready for the start of the year.
There is work that will be ongoing during the summer as we could not do everything in the cold 🥶 and wet ☔conditions. 

Looking forward to seeing regular and new customers alike during the year. 

From all of us at The Wee Train 🚂

We will be back soon and this will be our 77th anniversary of the railway running in the park.

We are very busy 💪🏻 with maintenance and repairs of the track🛤️ and our rolling stock🚞, together with building a new loco which should appear at the park this summer.

If all goes to plan we will open for the last weekend in March, if we cannot get the all our work completed it will be the following week (Easter Sat, Sun and Mon). lease see below some pictures of maintenance and work on both new and old locomotives.

Looking forward to welcoming everyone back for a new season.

From all of us at the Wee Train

We are busy now with our winter maintenance programme as considerable work must be done before we are ready for the new season.
We are planning on re-opening on Saturday 28th March or 4th April depending on when the work is completed. 

If you are in the park over the coming weeks you may see our members busy inspecting track and rolling stock.

In the workshop activity also continues, especially on the new build of our scale steam locomotive, an LMS Black 5.
We are nearing the completion of several years work on this amazing loco which, once ready, will undergo running-in mileage in the summer, before passenger hauling duties commence, hopefully by the end of the year.

Thank you 🙏 to all our volunteers keeping this railway going 💪🏻💪🏻
NOW in our 77th year 🎉🙌🏻 

From all of us at the Wee Train🚂

We are now closed for the 2025 season.

A huge Thank You to all who supported and visited Strathaven Miniature Railway this year.

A huge thank you to the dedicated volunteers who give up their time to keep the wee train running.

We will return Spring 2026🐰🐣🐥

We will post on Facebook our reopening date .

Thank you from all of us at the Wee Train

RIDE the Train in the DARK, this Guy Fawkes night in Strathaven the 1st of November.
This is our last operating event for 2025.
🎆🚂🎆🚂🎆🚂🎆🚂🎆🚂🎆🚂🎆
The Round Table will be putting on their annual display this coming Saturday.
Round Table timeline as below.
Gates open 5.30pm
Bonfire 7.00pm
Fireworks 7.30pm.
See their website or facebook page – entry by ticket only.

We will operate at least one steam locomotive on the night along with our petrol driven diesel outline locomotives.
Depending on weather we decorate the track with lights, while the trains are running on our track.
Cash and card accepted on the night at our entrance to the railway.
See you there !
From all of us at the WEE Train 🚂

Spooky 👻

Strathaven Miniature Railway will hold its annual Open Track Weekend on the 11th/12th of October.

The Open Track Weekend is when we invite all the other clubs/ societies in Scotland and the North of England to visit our track and bring along locomotives to run on our tracks.

You can visit the track and stand and look on from the public path, and see the visiting locomotives as well as our own engines being run on our home track.

NO PUBLIC RIDES AVAILABLE for this weekend.

With only three days of running left for the 2025 season – this Saturday, Sunday and Monday – we will endeavour to run on all three days from 11am through to 16.30 (weather permitting🌞).

A big THANK YOU to all who have supported the railway this year, whether a regular or a new visitor, we appreciate your time and effort to come and enjoy our piece of nostalgia.
We had several groups visit this year, thank you.
We had families, in some cases three generations, all with their own story of visiting the park and the railway over the years. For our new customers who have visited for the first time, thank you and we hope to see you back in the future.

After the September weekend we will have one more night of operating the trains on Guy Fawkes night. This year the Round Table has planned this for the 1st of November. Trains are running in the dark with the bonfire and fireworks in the background.

Thank you all from all of us at The Wee Train

A HUGE thank you to the volunteers for operating the railway over the two days and Friday evening, without you we could not have had such a successful Balloon Festival.

Thank you to all who attended the railway as customers, we had first timers, regulars and those that went on the train several times over the weekend. Thank you for queueing up and being patient as we tried to carry all who wanted a ride on the trains.

We had small breakdowns, all fixed to keep everything flowing again.
Thank you to those who fixed and repaired broken airlines, carried fuel out to the loco when it ran out of fuel half away around the track.
Customers commented that these excitements, and other little touches too many to mention, all added to the fun on the day.

We will be back to our normal opening times next weekend of Sat/Sun 11:00-16:30.

THANK YOU for your support, from all of us at the WEE TRAIN

Here are some photos of the Wee Train and the Balloons having a great time together – please enjoy 😌

Only 10 days to go to the Strathaven Balloon Festival and its 25th anniversary. This year it will be held over the 22nd, 23rd and 24th of August.

We will be operating the railway in conjunction with this amazing event held in Strathaven Park.

Admission is FREE to the Balloon Festival. The railway will still charge only £1.00 per person riding on the trains.

For more information about the Balloon Festival please see their website link below.

https://www.strathavenballoonfestival.co.uk

We hope to operate a selection of different locos over the three days. Electric, Petrol and of course Steam.

From all of us at the Wee Train